


Growing

by primaveracerezos



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Growing Up, carpentry, woodworking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22552987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primaveracerezos/pseuds/primaveracerezos
Summary: After the war, Draco learned to work with his hands.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	Growing

After the war, Draco learned to work with his hands. 

He was never allowed to do manual labor as a boy; he had elves and servants for that. He wasn’t permitted to cook, though he loved to watch the kitchen elves knead dough and chop vegetables when he could sneak in without his parents’ knowledge. He loved seeing the surety of builders’ hands as they spelled and hammered and charmed and sawed. He never had that confidence. He never felt like a hammer would land where he aimed it. 

So he learned. 

He could never go without magic, and why should he? (A little bit of that old racism seemed to color his thoughts, try as he might to relearn.) But he bought books, magic and Muggle, and taught himself to build. Draco was fascinated. Anything he wanted to make—a wardrobe, a scale model of the Ministry, a working set of tiny broomsticks, kitchen counters—he could just do it. 

At first, of course, they were all horrible. He destroyed the first few iterations of Pansy’s birthday gift (a little box with her family crest engraved on top); he burned more than a few attempts at a chair. 

But he grew. His skills sharpened with use, and he pictured them like the carving set Blaise got him for his birthday. Important. Useful. 

His. 

After months and years of work, of backaches and knicked fingertips and sawdust in his mouth, Draco’s body changed too. His mother had always praised his slim frame; he grew up believing his pure bloodline gave him the narrow shoulders that made him so quick on the Quidditch pitch. By the time Draco finished converting a spare bedroom into his workshop, he needed new robes; his shoulders were wider, his arms bigger. Even his waist grew, his thighs, his calves. He didn’t notice until he squatted down to stain the bottom of a chest and the button of his trousers popped off. 

He agreed to accompany Neville on a trip into the countryside to collect felled magical trees. They spent two weeks sharing a tent. Draco didn’t bring his hair potions; he was nervous about that, but the second time he bathed in a spring and let his hair air dry, Neville commented that it looked like a halo in the sun. 

So he kept it. 

He still liked getting dressed up. Pansy would drag him off to Paris or Berlin for a week at a time, where they’d cover themselves in glitter and sheer, silky clothes and dance and drink and kiss strangers. Draco liked the way people looked at him, liked the feeling of someone feeling his bicep. He liked being desired for the way his body looked, knowing it was because of the hours spent making things. 

But he loved the freedom, too. It was a new thing. No need to change for dinner, or to change at all, really, unless his clothes were covered in sawdust or sweat. Draco could wake up in lounge pants and a soft t-shirt, work until lunch in his pajamas, and shower only when he felt like it. He groomed because he found he enjoyed the routine, not because he was obligated to do so. 

This is how things grow: Slowly, painfully. Painstakingly. Cautiously. Meaningfully. 


End file.
